Merry Christmas! (what? Not yet? Yes, well... I'm kinda busy tomorrow at the same time as everyone else :D We're not going to quibble!)

What? Ah, the "I write everything, then I come back"?

Let's just say I've had my fill. It did help me for a while, but only for a while. Exactly. From time to time, my needs change and will probably change again in the future. Currently, I'm in a phase of "continuous sharing and writing without a triple safety net".

That's the phase that works the best and longest with me. I hope that everyone will benefit from it - I already do: I'm very happy to be able to write again some news and social stuff before the story that we are all obsessed with here X)

Small (big, in fact - VERY big) thanks to Alindorie for her continuous support out of publication these last few months, for having dealt with my doubts for chapters re-written three times, at least (can't wait chapter 19, do you? XDDD). Also small/huge thanks to OkamiShadou98 for our night talks about my ideas and doubts as well, as for checking my spelling.

You're so so so great :3

Warning - this chapter contains a sexually explicit scene.

Music:

'Do it for me' | Rosenfeld.


IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DETAILS

14


The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.

Chloe smiles once the barking has passed, gone in the night, further than she can hear clearly. It widens with the direction taken by her gaze, the brown caravan parked in the garden of the house next door, the tires almost entirely hidden by the weeds.

She likes the double meaning of the proverb, a variable judgment of a stubborn person. The strength to do what is necessary in spite of the many obstacles put in your way by others.

The proverb encourages people to be cautious, to have self-confidence too.

That's how she interprets it anyway.

After the noisy interlude through the irrevocably quiet darkness, Chloe comes back to her drowsy state. Her eyes not quite shut, not quite opened, numb from the shoulders to the ankles, but still moving on her seat which slightly swings between 'comfortable sleep' and 'future sore muscles'. She lifts her hips a bit, winces the same as soon as she feels her buttock muscles awaken in a rough straight line.

She'd make sure to wear loose fitting clothes instead of tight jeans and a breezy grey shirt the next time she went on a stakeout. At this time of night, no one - not even the suspects - would criticize her for wearing pajamas on duty, would they?

Her numb buttocks back on her seat, she turns her head towards her partner's chuckle. "What?"

"You groan as you snore," he says, each word followed by another chuckle which he tries to shut up with a sudden, faked cough. "I've come to wonder if you moan the same…."

She squints, not the best tactic to keep her eyes opened while waiting for their suspect, though.

"That's the third time you've accused me of snoring without concrete proof."

"Oh, but I can provide you with some!" His phone out of his jacket pocket, he clicks on video mode. "Just wait five more minutes and it won't be a problem anymore."

She purses her lips for a second. "You know that my gun is close at hand, right?"

For her subtle threat, Lucifer's smile isn't. "That would only be the second time you've shot me during night operations. You do know that 'shoot' is also an expression, don't you?"

Chloe smiles in turn, her attention back to the house.

"That would even the score."

"I'd rather spend this stakeout getting bored stiff and emptying my flask, thank you very much."

Chloe won't contradict him on the first part, but definitely will for the second. A simple glare would suffice, for no one can stop Lucifer from drinking on duty, although she'd have thought he'd be more cautious in terms of quantities near her.

But maybe that's what he likes?

More sensations, faster, by being mortal.

Her gaze on him is more curious than annoyed as he takes a first long sip from his flask, his phone already back in one of his suit pockets. How his flask seems always full, always within easy reach for the Devil's thirst of action - she'll never know.

"There's a third option," Chloe suggests after the second sip.

He moves the flask away from his lips, an inch away from drinking again if the option reaches a higher level of boredom than the initial situation. He looks at her hesitantly. "Sex at work is still proscribed, isn't it?"

Chloe rolls her eyes. "A fourth 'professionally reasonable' option."

Lucifer lets out an exclamation between mockery and disappointment before bringing the flask back to his lips for a long sip of resignation.

"We could talk about Hell," Chloe continues. "About what will wait for you down there?"

He stares at her. "Shouldn't we 'live for today'?"

"Live for today will only be possible if we talk about this, Lucifer."

He sighs, his fingers playing with the still open cap of his flask. "Hell is undoubtedly a 'professionally reasonable' topic. Whatever awaits me down there is... similar to whatever I left - demons to rule, souls to torment, time to spend... to get as bored on my throne."

"Aren't you afraid that-..." Chloe starts, not knowing how to phrase the rest.

Lucifer arches an eyebrow. "That what?"

"I don't know. There are just... just some things that bother me," Chloe whispers as she looks out the window.

"What things?"

She shrugs.

"I still don't understand how you're supposed to survive longer in Hell. Eight months is…." She breathes in, closes her fist. "How long is it?" she continues, turning to him. "A thousand years down there? More? And you seem as clueless as I am about it, so.…" Loose fist on her thigh, she smiles at him. "Yeah, it bothers me."

He smiles back at her, with that genuine smile that couldn't last.

"So it seems! Well... I am indeed 'clueless' in this regard, but I think we can trust my Father and His compulsive need to control my life. He wouldn't have accepted more time than I could actually endure without your charming company. But thank you for trusting my assessment, Detective!" he adds, sounding falsely hurt.

She shakes her head.

"Hell isn't you, Lucifer. You're mortal, more vulnerable there now that we are... 'bound'. Speaking of, I-" She frowns. "I'm still trying to understand how I - a miracle that makes the Devil mortal just by being close to him - could make you feel… 'stronger' now."

"I'm the Devil, darling.'Stronger' isn't strong enough to define any physical abilities of mine," he contradicts her with a hint of pride.

Just a hint, she's lucky he's not swaggering about it. Yet.

For a second, Chloe is brought back to another night, the first 'professionally reasonable' night after her flight to Europe. Lucifer had held a car at full speed with just one hand, which had been shot.. because she had been there.

A shiver digs into the space between her shoulders and the back of her seat.

Strong, yes.

It's a weak word.

"But you could be wrong," she insists.

He welcomes her words with an outraged expression. She lifts her hand from her thigh, stopping his protests. "Not for Hell and its… expiration date. I'm still talking about you here. The deterioration of your condition."

"Sorry, was there a question?"

"You can't leave Hell for more than four earthly months, fine, but... wouldn't it be easier to alternate shorter periods between the two? Like... the week with me on Earth and the weekend in Hell?"

Chloe's mouth shuts soon after. It sounds like shared custody, doesn't it?

Is she seriously trying to share the Devil with Hell?

Hell is a place, not a person!

"And miss the best parties at Lux?" Lucifer exclaims.

Chloe pinches her lips. "I'm serious, Lucifer."

"So am I, Detective," he replies. "Weekends can be more fun than Disney's torments with your offspring, you know?" Noticing her gaze, he adds, "It's not easier, it's impossible."

"Why?"

"For starters, going back and forth as frequently between each plan could defile my reputation, my authority. Mine and Michael's, Lilith's too."

That name again...

"Demons may see this as a new sign of weakness. I control the Gates of Hell, its functioning, but demons…" Lucifer pauses, shaking his head with a grin, "Demons only follow fear, only those who are 'stronger' than them, Detective. If I'd leave the place too often, for shorter times... to be with a human, moreover... even my deepest desire to rule them wouldn't be enough."

"If that's what might happen for just a few days, what will it be in three months?"

Lucifer shakes his head once more, "You're not looking at the problem from the right perspective."

"Either your absence is a problem or it's not!"

And if it isn't a problem now, for nearly a month on Earth, well….

There is a chance that he might stay longer, right? Chloe clings to this possibility as she's clinging to the steering wheel; to the point of bending the leather under her fingers to her will.

Her gaze clings to Lucifer's sigh.

"What would you think of the Lieutenant if she only came by once a week, stayed for an hour or two and left before the end of your service? What would you think of her if it became regular as clockwork?"

Chloe thinks for a moment, at first tempted to say that she would make do with it, that her work wouldn't change, nor would her investment in it. After all, with her 'troubled' past and her intimate relationship with the previous Lieutenant, she doesn't give a damn about anyone else's opinion of her work.

Still, she would wonder why this person would've been chosen to lead if he or she wasn't able even to remain at her post.

"I'd think she doesn't care," Chloe admits. "That she hasn't her place here, or mine... if it would affect my work."

"Precisely. What if she had to leave for... let's say a maternity leave of several weeks after introducing her substitute to you?" Lucifer continues and she notices a gleam in his gaze, a schemer gleam maybe.

Here again, Chloe could claim that she wouldn't show any respect for a substitute. Yet….

Yet, this respect depends above all on an instinctive comparison with one leader next to the other; each other's competence to lead, to support or discipline.

If the substitute is trustworthy, she would accept his authority. There's a good chance that she would respect the Lieutenant even more for having chosen someone as competent as she is to replace her. Otherwise, she would eagerly wait for her boss's return and would appreciate her leadership all the more.

In the best case-scenario, no one would want to disappoint their boss and would do everything possible to have their work done perfectly, that it looks to her like she never left the precinct.

Chloe nods. "I see."

"Here's how you craftly use your authority over others, Detective. The fear of disappointing me, whether I'm actually down there or not. Or the fear to upset me; which is all the same, I guess." He looks at her. "What would there be to fear from an itinerant King, hm?"

"But don't you fear that your 'substitutes' look like better rulers, eventually? Because they're in Hell while you're not?"

"They can't replace me for good," Lucifer says confidently. "Not anymore."

Not an answer.

"So you trust your brother?"

Lucifer scoffs. His right leg bent - too tall for the small space of her car, even with the seat as far back as it can go - as high as the gear shift, he places his hand there, mechanically rubbing the anthracite fabric from knee to mid-thigh. "I'll be damned, no! I trust his pride, though."

Chloe presses her lips together, holding her apprehensions between them.

"Well, that's comforting," she murmurs.

He chuckles.

"What I mean is that my brother is convinced to serve a higher purpose, Father's obviously. How original!" he mutters with wrinkled nose. "In any case, Michael has always thought that he was better than all of us in predictable servility." He raises his hand from his thigh. "If none of his fellow siblings is worthy of his glorious presence... well, I doubt that his fallen brother's demonic legions will ever be."

Right.

Angel pride, hm? She hadn't looked at the problem from this angle. If Michael is as arrogant as narcissistic Lucifer can be...

Chloe's eyebrows rise slightly as she tries to imagine their relationship before he became King, before his fall.

Another topic to dig further into later.

"Okay. Okay…" she repeats, her gaze staying on their victim's house. "What about Lilith, then? She'd have some interest in taking on more power than she already has, as the 'Mother of Demons'." She shrugs. "I'm surprised she's even willing to help you, given her history with your Father. With male authority in general."

Lucifer's eyebrows rise. "If I didn't know your non-believer basis, I'd swear you peered into the Kabbalah."

"I've done... research," Chloe admits.

Tons of research; varied for their answers, on the new following questions.

Lucifer chuckles. "How professional of you. But no, Lilith couldn't care less about stepping on my toes, Detective. That and these bloody ashes…."

"Because Kabbalah is wrong?"

"Not entirely. Lilith had been indeed the first to deal with Adam's congenital thickheadness, as Dad's orders. It's all about the details, really."

"But the general idea is that she's her own boss and can't stand inter-species misogyny," Chloe cuts him off.

Lucifer stares at her, exclaiming, "Is it just me, or are you implying that I'm a universal misogynist?"

She opens her mouth, yet he doesn't give her time to explain. Or apologize, because... yes, in retrospect, maybe she'd painted a gloomier picture of him than he merits.

Blame Hell - gloomy place and topic.

"I never thought less of any woman only because they didn't have a bloody penis between their legs! Never," he continues vehemently - virtuous Devil, thousands-year-old fighter for women's rights.

Chloe places her hand on his arm, waiting for him to finish his feminist tirade to draw his gaze to hers, his pouting mouth to her smile.

"That's not what I meant." She presses her words with additional pressure on the fabric, around his forearm, between the elbow and the wrist.

"Really, it's not," she continues. "I... I just don't understand how you can trust her, given her history with God. After all... you're His son. That kind of bond - even if they no longer exist," she adds, noticing the tension under her palm, "... it'd be enough for a lot of people."

"Our histories are enough to trust each other," he says.

And she wants to believe that. She really does, but—

Mother of the Demons, Lilith, Rebellious First Woman,necessary assistance - those words never cease to invade her mind, to silence any impartiality. Lucifer reads doubts - and she undoubtedly has some - into her silence and adds, "God rejected her, just as He rejected me; because we both rejected His authority head-on. We are both the first rebels in History. We have this strong bond between us, this respect for each other."

He lifts his shoulder in a half shrug, smiling at Chloe who lets her hand slide down the fabric of his jacket to her own thighs, where she closes her fists and digs her nails in her palms.

"See? Nothing to worry about."

Still, she does worry.

Relaxing her hand, Chloe rubs it back and forth - just like Lucifer did earlier. It takes three thoughtful back and forth movements to overcome the irritation that her nails just caused. Still, it would take more than mechanical strokes to soothe the rest. More questions are already clashing in her head.

How 'strong' is that bond?

Is it a kind of... intimate bond, perhaps?

Between Lucifer and the Mother of.. Maze's mother, actually.

Chloe holds back a shiver, rubbing her shoulders just as mechanically under Lucifer's gaze.

"Are you cold? Is there even a heating system in police cars?" he asks, leaning towards the dashboard plunged in the dark.

She shakes her head. "I'm good. You... you said 'for starters'. Is there another reason?"

"There is, yes. You experienced it quite closely when I came back." To her frown, he points at her hands, still at shoulders level, yet still on the folds of her shirt. "When I was cold? In your bathroom?"

Chloe stared at him no less. Her hands gently lower at elbow level. "I remember. Still can't see how it prevents a shorter time in Hell, though."

"It does because you don't come and go from Hell to Earth and vice versa as any room of your place, Detective. We're talking about two planes of existence that are fundamentally different in many details, as insignificant as major ones."

"Such as?"

"Such as the time going differently, the change of air, of temperatures. Leaving Hell for Los Angeles is…" He briefly looks for words, finding them in the glove box, judging by his gaze fixed on it. "...it's like walking out of a cave after having spent an eternity in the dark, stuck between two unfinished sensations of heat, freezing cold, hunger, thirst... If the hell-loops make time go round in circles, Detective; it feels like it stops for good anywhere else down there."

"I thought it was going slower?"

He nods.

"So bloody slowly that it would almost stop. That's... that's the feeling coming out of it, anyway. My feeling. And when I come back here, well... everything feels—"

"Too much?" Chloe helps him.

Lucifer nods again, gesturing at her hands with his chin. "It always takes me a while to get used to this other pace, these details."

"That's why you couldn't warm up on your own, why you slept that long..." Chloe murmurs, recalling Lucifer's reactions once he had come into her apartment.

It hadn't just been strictly physical sensations.

Lucifer being... Lucifer, she hadn't been worried either about seeing him 'playing' with objects as soon as he came into a room - actually, if one didn't know him as the actual Devil, it might have looked like some kind of OCD.

And there had been that other time, when he'd officialized his return at the precinct, how he had talked to everyone; never alone, never quiet. She'd thought it was him, classically theatrical, but—

It was just… just adjustments to Earth time.

"You make it sound like I'm this naive princess in your spawn's books - the one who had a strange addiction to needles," he says with a smile close to an outraged grimace.

"These adjustments… how much time does it take?"

Lucifer purses his lips, his forehead wrinkled with reflection. "Being the King, and an angel, it's usually shorter than for any other demon like Mazikeen or Lilith. But… it seems longer now that-... well, you know." He cocks his head to the side. "When I left Hell I was weaker already, so… takes days, a week maybe, to fully recover."

Chloe swallows.

The tight knot in her throat only increases after this.

"A week…" she repeats, her words barely audible.

Their eyes met; resignation for the slow suffocation of her foolish hopes of any alternative.

"Now you understand how impossible your proposition is," he whispers.

His light tone doesn't reach his lips.

The knot initially stuck in Chloe's throat reaches her belly, a heavy stone that neatly crushes her next words, "Yes... I do."

Accepting it, tough?

Impossible.

-xXx-


Staying alert all night also seems impossible.

At best, Chloe is distracted.

Distracted by her thoughts about Hell, Lilith and the impossibility of keeping Lucifer here, as she would have wanted; distracted by her numb muscles as minutes first, then hours, pass. Her hands are indeed resting on the investigation file, her thumb is indeed supported by her index finger on the back of the file, yet….

Yet, it's starting to be a distracted feeling.

At worst, Chloe is on the verge of agreeing with Lucifer. She keeps her long sighs and sniffles at the limit of the sound he is so keen to hear and record.

Until the file starts to tilt forward on her distracted knees.

Lucifer restores balance with one hand before she has time to pass the slight startle between wakefulness and torpor, before the papers fall at her feet. With a smile, he watches her rub her eyes and puts the rescued file on the dashboard. "Sounds like my favorite show is early!"

"Mhm?" Chloe mumbles, still busy rubbing her left eye. "W't sh'w?"

"Albanian field wench & Co."

She gives him a half-glare, rubbing her eye one last time while sitting up on her seat. Her lips twisted in a grimace, she releases the few strands of hair stuck in the headrest with her hand.

"Still have my gun," she reminds him.

"Still up for another penetration of yours," he replies.

She snorts, her hand still resting at the back of her neck as she rubs the knot of discomfort there. Her gaze naturally stops on the digital clock.

3:05 AM.

Monday morning.

Her thumb slows down on her skin, her gaze coming back to Lucifer, her thoughts... distracted by another kind of penetration.

More conventional, in a way.

Well... the one penetrating isn't. The one penetrated? A bit more.

Chloe's hand lowers with her long breath that doesn't blow the starting fire in her cheeks and neck. It probably feels warm because she has just been rubbing her neck in search of sore muscles.

Probably that.

It's coming soon, less than two days... their….

Their intimate dinner.

Of that, she only knows when it'll be, just that she can't control her thoughts from the very first conscious one about it. She breathes in again, glancing at Lucifer.

But it's all about details, isn't it? Details, that's what she needs to... just stop thinking the worst.

Why does she only think the worst?

Chloe gently shakes her head, pinching her lips. "Speaking of 'penetration'..."

Lucifer turns his head, she avoids moving towards him at all.

"How is it that Ella can penetrate the secrets of our date while I can't?"

"Still jealous?" he teases her with a smirk.

She shakes her head.

"Still wondering. Why discuss this so much with her and not me? You're dating me, not her."

"Precisely, Detective."

She arches an eyebrow.

"I thought it more prudent to ask Miss Lopez's opinion, who, as you so rightly stated, isn't the one I plan to be more intimate with. It's strategy," he explains. "That and to spare you the details."

"Strategy?"

"Yes. Giving you the details hadn't worked well so far, had it? I'm only trying to follow your instructions!" he pleads. "Avoid dramatic interruptions, manipulations, and silly male displays - your words, dear."

Chloe sits up, frowning.

"Is it just me or are you implying that our previous failed dates... wereon me?" she exclaims.

As she straightens from one side, Lucifer seems to shrivel up on the other. "Well, I—"

"You didn't show up to the first one!"

"True, but—"

"And one of your past conquests ruined the second," Chloe immediately adds, two fingers raised for two bitter failures.

"How was I supposed to know that Jana—"

She lifts a third finger. "Let's skip the third one about 'how I can prove I'm better than Marcus', but the last one–!'

Finger bent, not raised yet for the factual accusation of his fails to woo her so far, Chloe's outburst bends as well. Between these very fingers, she relives a fiasco that was indisputably her own doing.

She relives the vial, the glass of wine.

Lucifer and his vulnerability that had prevented a second attempt, which would have been her fault, for sure.

Chloe swallows, lowering this third finger still bent halfway down her palm, lowering the two previous ones after it. "Maybe not the last one," she whispers.

She slightly flinches in her seat when, two seconds later, Lucifer's fingers intertwine with hers, relaxing the old guilt from thumb to pinkie. It's only when this one is intertwined with his that their eyes meet, that he smiles, like he never does with anyone else. A smile all hers, theirs.

"There's no need to turn tonight darker, Detective."

She smiles in turn, clutching their fingers together.

Lucifer follows the movement, discrete pressure given how much stronger it could have been. 'Strong' isn't strong enough to express what she feels.

"You know I no longer blame you for this, don't you? It's all behind us," he says without taking his eyes off her.

She nods.

"Behind us," she repeats before lifting their joined hands to her lips. She kisses their knuckles, her cheek pressed against it a second later. "It is, yes. All the more reasons not to take them as an example for planning the next one."

Their fingers spread apart, Lucifer's closer to her cheek than they have been before. Chloe's fingers stay around his hand, while his follow the curve of her face, from the corner of her eye to her jaw.

"All the more reasons to trust me and tell me everything, too," Chloe continues.

Lucifer laughs, his smile widening. "What if I prefer to keep it a surprise?"

"I hate surprises."

Lucifer's thumb comes back on the curve of her right cheek, light circles, as light pressure on her skin.

"I hate not being in charge," Lucifer replies, his gaze fixed in hers; unwavering. "It would seem that we're at a dead-end." With these words, his gaze lingers briefly over her shoulder, towards the street plunged into darkness. "Both literally and figuratively."

She smiles, close to laugh as her fingers move lower, as low as his sleeves allow them to.

"Being in a relationship implies compromises, Lucifer."

He arches an eyebrow, his breath deeper under Chloe's touch, with her hand wrapped around his cufflink. "Is it, now? How so?"

The space between her face and his is so thin that she could almost predict his next breath, when it would tickle her skin and where. The pressure of Lucifer's fingers has changed, now pressed behind her ear.

She shivers.

"I could review my definition of 'professionally reasonable' options…."

"Oh, do go on!"

"And you could review your definition of 'surprise' date?"

He breathes in, his eyes lower - almost shut when looking at him so closely - on her lips, his nose brushing against hers. "It depends on your definition of 'unreasonable'."

Chloe gives him the first words of it the second his eyes come back to find hers once more, when the unreasonable is overcome with a kiss. She feels his shiver under her palm, that touch of provocation on the tip of his tongue, an inhaled breath, stolen from between his lips, which he then tries to catch.

A quick yet incomplete definition on the Devil's parted lips. "So unreasonable."

"Lucifer..."

"Mh?" he whispers, eyes shut.

He opens them, his hand almost to the point of tearing off the first button of a long, too long series of obstacles to such reasonable compromise. The desire blazing in his eyes, his lips neither too far apart nor close enough to Chloe's, his breath touching her chin; deep, quick.

Chloe's left hand moves under his collar, the right one at mouth level, which moves on another definition. "Detective?"

Their definition.

"Shut up."

With her lips drawn back to his, Chloe is unreasonably drawn towards him, voluntarily sitting astride the Devil in a car.

They both moan, welcoming together the very first friction of a long series of others. She listens to the rubbing of the fabric under her legs as she presses her body, her hips against his. That of the leather under Lucifer, his breath in the hollow of her shoulder as soon as she finds that specific spot under his ear.

The rubbing of her jeans between his fingers, a shy hold on the curve of her buttocks at first, firmer the second her tongue brushes his earlobe.

Lucifer quivers with her hands on his skin, on his torso stripped of his shirt up to his navel. Chloe is only that strong, as any weak, yet fierce human desire.

That's more than enough, enough for him to demand, to bring her lips back to his.

She tastes cigarettes, Merveilles encircling bourbon in her mouth. She gets lost in it for a moment, until Lucifer releases her, nose to nose, breath upon breath.

"I never thought I'd say this, but-..."

"But what?" Chloe encourages him.

His mouth, his eyes, his neck, his torso lifted on each word, each one blown on her skin….

She wants it all.

She wants him, unreasonably.

"You're not far from making the Devil come in his pants." He smiles. "That's... that's a first."

She laughs, bringing their faces closer for another kiss, less long and deep. More intoxicating, in a way, for all the ways she dreams of making him come in his pants.

Chloe's hand passes over his neck, his torso; he brushes her nipple with his thumb. She leans forward, feels the growing pressure of his belt buckle against her skin. She leans further, until he quivers. Again.

"There may be a solution…." she says once the belt buckle is out, pulled towards her.

Lucifer, who has made much more progress in unbuttoning her shirt than she has twisting his buttons with her hand. He unclips her bra and moves his other hand under the curve of her left breast, arching an eyebrow. "I'm all ears, Detective."

With these words, his thumb moves back to her nipple, applying a longer pressure. She moans, exhales, forehead against forehead. Close enough to see the Devil's satisfied smirk - so attentive, so pleased with himself. "Exactly."

Shivering, burning; the solution is muffled between their bodies, Chloe's raised as much as possible to let Lucifer's mouth replace his thumb, who contorts himself beneath her. His practice is less surprising than welcome, a thrill catching her breath when he lowers his pants halfway down his thighs.

For a lick on her skin, Chloe scratches the back of his neck, his perfect hair. For the expert pressure of his lips around her nipple, she presses her other hand against his erection.

When Lucifer presses his mouth harder, Chloe spreads her fingers around the tip. His hand twitches around her breast, hers moves lower.

Slow, fast, back-and-forth moves. Although never straight to the point.

The Devil's lips feel less experienced, breathless against her skin, around her name, "Chloe..."

She buries her free hand in his hair, applying slight pressure on his neck and the tip of his member. He digs his fingers into her back, on the verge of pain, this muffled moan around her breast, his tongue begging for her own litany. "Mmh... Lucifer…."

Then his other hand leaves her chest to trace an erratic line - directed by his partner's reasonable ministrations - to her panties.

How did he unbutton her jeans without her noticing?

With her lips half-open against his temple, Chloe breathes in as soon as his fingers go under the cloth, on pressed lips, eager to know everything he could touch. How he could touch her—

"Because he knows exactly what we want!"

Chloe freezes.

She opens her eyes, closes them until Lucifer closes another space between her thighs, between his too slow, too tempting fingers. Her breath blocked in her chest, her wide eyes open towards the intruder that appeared out of nowhere in the back seat.

Mouth open, she stares at the woman, legs crossed as Lucifer spreads hers with his free hand, mouth curved into a smile as his is tracing a slow and determined path between her breasts, to the high point, which is the curve of her chin.

"Wh—"

"Oh, he's doing this thing! Look!" the intruder exclaims, her long blonde hair cascading down to her plunging neckline.

"Tibetan singing pot and artisan hony?"

Chloe's head turns, giving Lucifer more to climb with loads of kisses. Another woman, also blonde, head tilted forward, is trying to see over the Devil's shoulder.

What the f—

"We're in a car!" a more masculine voice protests and she turns her head to the driver's side, towards the annoyed - or perhaps overly aroused - man who is rummaging through the glove compartment. "We'll need Vaseline, best thing to take her to seventh heaven!"

Then clapping, in the back seat again, Eve hopping almost to the car roof with a sparkling smile. "This is gonna be so much fun!"

Chloe jumps on Lucifer's lap when the window opens, Jana - past stewardess and Lucifer's lover - leaning over, her gaze on her firm grip. "Please buckle up... the take off might be intense!"

"Ho—?"

Chloe's stammering is nevertheless muffled by another voice behind Lucifer. "None of this matters."

This voice alone silences all the others, including Chloe's. It silences the pleasure she feels with the Devil's meticulous touch. Chloe turns around, one hand on Lucifer's shoulder, where his shirt has slipped under for a growing desire now silenced as well after those multiple intrusions, this last manifestation. Her other hand, placed much lower down, is pushed aside by the woman's left one... not a woman, she looks more like a creature in a human sheath.

Lucifer groans his assent in her neck. He tugs on her jeans, her panties, the evening breeze weaving its way under each fabric, just like his fingers, still slowly moving back and forth between her thighs.

There is so little space between them, from one mouth to the other. Chloe's, open, mute with astonishment and anxiety. That woman's lips opened near Lucifer's earlobe, her tongue, her inhuman smirk.

Lucifer's head falls backwards, his nose tickling Chloe's temple, then his breath, hoarse with a name. "Lilith…."

The devilish finger moves rather forwards then backwards on her folds, it circles her clit, yet stops as soon as Lilith's tongue licks Lucifer's earlobe. Her blue eyes never leave hers, her dark hair being at one with the darkness.

What she murmurs to the only human present strips her of the Devil's closeness, of her power on his release, "You don't matter."

"Mmh... yes…." Lucifer moans, face turned towards Lilith.

This word, the way that Lucifer turns away from her grasp for other fingers than hers, seeking early release while he first wanted pleasure to last.

He reacts earlier than expected. How his body moves beneath her, how his hips lift from the seat to meet, not Chloe's fingers, but Lilith's. How that woman plays a much more important melody along his erection.

The Devil's finger possesses her prematurely.

Her cry joined his, surprise for pleasure, more pleasure than Chloe can provide, for the red glow in the King's eyes… for human dead-end.

And Lilith laughs, delighted about her failure.

"My King…."

-xXx-


With a sharp move and a strangled cry, Chloe opens her eyes, hearing more than she sees frightened cats fight nearby.

"Bloody cats…."

She turns her head, staring between each blink - and there are many - Lucifer turning to the window, to this four-legged street brawl.

She has blinked at least fifteen times when he turns around, staring back at her. "Detective?"

"Detective?"

Taking a deep breath, she looks down at his crotch.

Pants on.

Buckled belt, irremediably buckled.

"Like what you see?"

Chloe doesn't respond, turning her head towards the back seat, her neck sore from her previous, unsurprisingly uncomfortable position. Not a blink, neither a move as she scrutinizes every visible inch of the car.

"Detective?" Lucifer repeats.

She notices the change of intonation; concern instead of teasing.

She swallows and turns back to her partner's perplexed expression - fully dressed, awake, normally 'aroused' by this never-ending stakeout.

Chloe opens her mouth, fire rising to her cheeks.

Fire.

Lucifer, his eyes... and...

Her eyes turn to the street side. "I... I fell asleep, didn't I? For how long?"

"Long enough for me to record everything."

A hand through her hair, over her face, her mouth ajar, Chloe stares at him. "Record? Record what?"

Lucifer's triumphant smile is the only answer she gets. He lifts his finger, erected like another member she's doing her best not to imagine beyond Morpheus' arms, his arms…

Neither looking towards—

"Chloe…."

Shit.

Her gaze travels between Lucifer and the dashboard, she barely hears him rummaging through his suit pockets. He pulls out his phone, his grin wider than before on his face, and diabolically teasing, as he shows her the device.

"My favorite show, Detective."

Chloe needs another second to get whatever he meant.

Her heartbeats race in her chest the second Lucifer's finger moves towards the playback option. "How about we distract ourselves with it now, hm?"

"No!"

Lucifer startles on his seat, phone in hand, arched eyebrow.

Chloe, meanwhile, breathes in and out loudly - a kind of bonus scene to the show he had been waiting for all night. She knows that he likes other shows, and that she's embarrassed enough not to risk hearing her... personal version of it.

She may have shouted a bit too loudly, though.

Clearly too much, judging by Lucifer's expression.

"All right," he says without taking his eyes off her, his phone slowly back in place in awkward silence.

As for Chloe, she would've liked the intervention of another belligerent cat. Lucifer's gaze burns her skin, all the more so as she remembers the one she dreamed about earlier; how his fingers had taken control of her pleasure, how he had taken pleasure from the hand of another person.

This person that she hears about all the time, someone important.

Someone who had made the Devil get a hard-on, who had made him scream faster, louder than she had.

Fu-...

"Is everything all right, Detective?" he asks after an embarrassing, terribly humiliating minute of dwelling on her last fantasy turned nightmare.

Right.

Right, right, right...

Chloe nods without looking at him, busy chewing on her bottom lip and fiddling her fingers so that she no longer thinks of his or how her panties are pressing against her fantasized desires with wet guilt.

"Good," he says. "Because our guest has arrived."

"What?"

With a glance, Lucifer points to the victim's house and the - masculine ? - suspicious shape walking towards it. It's still too dark to see 'his' face, though. Silence settles in on itself, another heavy - although less disturbing - tension rising inside the car, between the two partners.

The louder of the two quickly breaks it with a useless but instinctive whisper, anyway. "Ready, Detective?"

"No…."


AN

What? I said there was a 'scene', not that it was real X)

(Don't hit me before winter festivities, thank you XPPPPP)

The next chapter will be published next year (I'm not sure of which day yet, so no specifications, we'll keep the suspense a bit :D) I hope this Christmas gift pleased you as much as it pleased me.

A review, favorite and/or follow are very much appreciated, as always. So don't hesitate - I don't bite ;)

Enjoy - safely - the holidays with your family!

And already a happy (better, fingers crossed) year to all of you :333333